At the Edge of Insanity
by sir-hugalot
Summary: The pain would always be there, and her eyes would always be boring into him, trying to find the answers he didn't have. The torture of the Longbottoms.


AT THE END OF INSANITY.

Her eyes. That was the first thing he saw - her eyes, staring at him, glinting with rage. She came in the door - smashed it open - followed by others, three of them. His hand flew to his wand, his thoughts flew to the room above him, where his wife was. But he was disarmed, and at the commotion his wife appeared, having had the sense to put their child in his bed and shut the door.

"What do you know?" she hissed, clutching his wand in one hand and jabbing her own at his throat. "Where is he? What do you know?"

His cries of "Nothing!" went unheard, and she kept asking, over and over. He knew who she was asking after. Who else would she be wanting? She was so close, so close he could see every inch of her face with perfect clarity. There were too many emotions etched into the lines there - too many. There was rage, there was malice, there was even a glint of desperation in her eye. Her eyes never wandered from his face, except when his wife appeared, but she didn't bother with her. The others did that. "You know something. You Aurors always know something. He's not dead, he's not, and you know something." He didn't know anything, but that wasn't what she wanted to hear.

He was forced backwards, stumbling over a piece of furniture and knocking it over before he was shoved sideways. Was that the table they had received last Christmas? His heart was beating faster than it ever had before, his hands were slippery, but he had nothing to hold on to. She was still hissing at him, still jabbing her wand into his throat, still looking at him with her eyes that betrayed everything.

It was all he could do to look into those eyes - they were brown, but it wasn't the chocolaty warmth of his wife's. It was more of a murky brown, with a hard glint in her eyes, and he saw she was mad. Perhaps not as mad as someone in Saint Mungo's, but mad. What had happened at the Potter's had terrified her, thrown her off the path she had been following. She had no path, now, he could see that. She had no path, and he thought that this was probably a way of finding another one. Finding the old one that she had trod so diligently. But he knew nothing. No one knew anything - no one had heard of anything like it. He hadn't been there!

And then there was the pain.

He registered it was the Cruiciatus curse, but he hadn't heard her utter the incantation. The pain was what alerted him - it was a thousand knives, it was hot coals, it was the force of a hippogriff ramming into him. It wouldn't stop, wouldn't let up, and he begged, begged that he didn't know anything. But that wasn't what she wanted to hear.

Her eyes took in his pain, took in his fear. As she realised he was telling the truth, she didn't stop. She became angry, he could see it - the anger made her all the more dangerous, made her curses all the more powerful. The pain wouldn't stop, and then they were torturing his wife as well. Her screams hurt as much as the effects of the curse she was continuously casting, and the pain doubled, tripled. He needed to make them stop, she needed to stop screaming, they needed to do something, anything.

"He's dead," he gasped, trying to remember why they were torturing him. Did he know anything? What was it all about? Was he trying to protect something? Someone? Why was she so angry? What was going on? He didn't know, but he grasped for the answers, groped in the darkness for something, anything. "He's dead, and the house blew up - the boy survived, he's dead, he's dead--"

But she didn't believe him. That wasn't what she wanted to hear.

"No he's not," she snarled, and her breath was all he could smell, all he could feel. It was hot, but against the effects of the curse it was almost cool. "He is too powerful to die! Liar! The Dark Lord is the most powerful wizard that has ever been. You know something, tell me!"

But he didn't know anything.

And still, the screams. His wife was there, his wife was screaming, crying, saying she didn't know anything. They needed to believe them! They needed to stop, they needed to do something. "I don't know," he gasped, trying to work out why the world was fading - all he could see was her face, her eyes, they were burning into him, burning, it hurt so much. Her eyes, with the glint of madness, the whites gleaming in the darkness. The darkness and her eyes - that's all there was, all there would ever be. Her eyes. That was all. Even the screams of his wife faded, the others faded, but the pain was still there. The pain would always be there, and her eyes would always be boring into him, trying to find the answers he didn't have.

"I - don't know," he gasped again, over and over. "I don't know, I don't know."

And then, at last, the pain was gone. The pain faded, but her eyes were still there. They were the last things he saw before he welcomed the darkness - the darkness was better than the light, better than the pain. As long as her eyes weren't there, trying to find the answers he didn't have.


End file.
